(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a prosthetic capsular bag and method for inserting the same.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Cataract surgery is one of the most successfully and most frequently performed surgical procedures in the US. Each year, millions of people achieve a dramatic improvement in their visual function thanks to this procedure. With the increasing proportion of the US population reaching their retirement years, there is expected to be a doubling of the demand for cataract surgery over the next twenty years from 3.3 million to over 6 million annually. This increased demand will require more ophthalmologists to be trained to perform cataract surgery as well as each trained ophthalmologist to perform more cataract surgeries each year.
In addition to the increase in demand for cataract surgery, there have been many technological advances that have increased patient expectations and requirements for the surgery. The procedure takes a short amount of time to perform, and patients expect quick recovery of visual function. Patients are also asking their ophthalmologist to give them restoration of more youthful vision without glasses through the use of multifocal lenses, presbyopia correcting lenses, toric lenses, and monovision to name a few. The use of these lenses requires perfect technique, perfect preoperative measurements, and a dose of good fortune to ensure patient satisfaction. In fact, as many as 20-50% of patients will typically require glasses or follow up refractive surgical enhancements to achieve their desired refractive endpoint. The reason for this high amount of refractive unpredictability comes from the final resting position of the lens implant within the eye. This is mathematically expressed as the effective lens position (“ELP”), and can be quite variable and unpredictable in the current state of cataract surgery. Recently, hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested into developing highly sophisticated femtosecond laser systems that will be able to more precisely create the cataract incisions with the stated goal of lessoning the variability of the ELP and thus aiding in better refractive outcomes. However, as good as the laser is, it does not account for the major problem plaguing the variability of the ELP, which is the volumetric difference between the cataract, natural capsular bag and intraocular lens implant, or IOL.